Here lies the remains of the lawyer,
one of the many more than rats
No danger of attachment by the experimentalist
RIP
Nobody was faster
Some things a rat will not do

If you don’t type in your name and credit card information in a reasonable length of time (much more than two minutes) or (sorry) if your modem connection breaks accidentally, the seats are returned to inventory.

And the system should tell you in advance if the seats got claimed by someone else after you chose your dates and flights but before you got to the page wher eyou fill in your name and credit card.

Tom in Kansas City: If you are an elite FF, it is cheaper to fly a legacy airline because there are no fees for checked luggage bags. Even if you are not an elite FF, there are some airline branded-credit card that allows you to check your bags for free. Even if the fare on a legacy airline is higher, it might be worth it in regards to the FF miles IF the person plans to travel outside of the US. For example, we travel to Europe and Asia every few years and I use my FF miles to purchase First Class or Business Class tickets for my family. The last time that I flew to BWI from PHX, the fare on US Airways was $ 80 cheaper than Southwest. Even if I was not a FF with US Airways and I paid a fee for checked luggage, the total cost still be cheaper.

Now if we could only get them to only show the “real” price on that first screen, not the price before fees/surcharges/taxes (United used to show that, but apparently changed to compete with the other airlines’ lowball quotes), life would be much better.

There is at least a good explanation for the fare going from $100 to $200 — both of those have the same restrictions, so there’d be no reason for someone to want to book the $200 fare over the $100 or $400 (with fewer restrictions)…until the $100 one was sold out.

Alas, I’m sure the web will reach this point someday!

Before becoming an attorney I was an engineer writing computer programs large enterprises such as NASA so I understand a thing or too about programming. And much of my practice relates to the purchase and sale of intellectual property since I am located in Silicon Valley.

Your question is a good one, but it fails to appreciate the distinction between dynamic and static pricing. This distinction relates both to the technical reqiurements as well as the financial ones.

Ticketmaster has hundred and thousands of venues, etc. But they are each relatively independent venues. There are no predictive algorithms; no prices which change relative to other purchases. For the techies: Ticketmaster events represents a sequence of independent events, i.e. what happens at Theatre 1 does not affect any prices at Theatre 2. So from a programming perspective its not really a big number since the events are not interrelated.

Equally important, the price of tickets remains the same regardless of how many tickets are sold or the speed in which they are sold. Consider a simplied example: If the Pantages is selling tickets to Wicked for this upcoming Tuesday (Excellent show) and makes two classes of tickets available, say 1000 floor tickets at $90 and 1000 balcony tickets at $70. Regardless of how many or how fast the floor tickets are sold, they will always be $90 and the balcony tickets will be $70. So its not a big deal to allow you to hold a balcony ticket for five minutes because whether you buy the ticket or not, it remains $70. There is no chance that its going to jump to $150.

Whereas if the theatre were to use dynamic pricing, the computer would have to be concerned with the number of floor seats sold, the number of balcony seats sold, as well as the number of tickets sold for shows on the surrounding days and the speed in which those tickets are being sold. It would also have to be concerned with tickets being sold at competing venues, i.g. geographically local theatres catering to a similar demographic.

Based upon this information, the ticket price may increase or decrease at any moment.

I would suggest that airline pricing is akin to stock market pricing. Expecting to be able to hold a ticket for 5 min would be akin to being able to hold a stock purchase for 5 min while you decide. Doesn’t happen.

This is a clear violation of ADA. Do NOT complain to Delta. If 180/365 days have not elapsed yet – please – ask Chris Elliott for my contact information and we’ll file a complaint with the appropriate state / federal agencies and courts and obtain the appropriate discipline of the employee involved together with an agreement from Delta to not violate the law in the future. Plus we’ll get the ticket price refunded. Then we’ll have a chat with the travel agent’s supervisory staff.

You cannot in good conscience expect a travel agent to expect the airline employees to actively violate the law and corporate policy, and they should tell you their hours and times they answer the phone and deal with issues, but they should, if they do lots of work, have inside lines to the airline customer service supervisors to contact people to deal with these issues.

Step #1 is to contact the gentlemen who handed out business cards and ask what they know. Get their statements and then file a complaint with those statements – give Delta no ability to ever regain the high ground. Pound this gate agent into the ground so they never work a flight again.

I have ALWAYS found the airlines more than helpful, like Disney, when it comes to accommodating disabilities, especially in kids. This type of horrific display of insensitivity needs to be quashed immediately. As Chris says alot – the issue is to contact someone with the power to do something about. I tend to practice realistically, and have the case nailed down before I file a complaint. This makes settling it so easy.

Going to CES in early January? See you there!

Airlines, unlike concerts don’t have fixed numbers of ticketrs for a fixed price. Its not the same technology at all.

they just don’t care enough to implement it.

Or maybe because not “enough” people tell Southwest they want that? If Southwest/Southworst is like certain companies, they prioritize their changes/upgrades/etc. based on what a “critical number” of their customers tell them.

On the side, I’ve seen that happen with various airlines’, hotels’, or travel agencies’ sites. They’re all in “good” company, sheesh.